15 TAKE THE LINE-ART FROM BLACK TO COLOUR

When the art is coloured I’ll convert the black line-art to coloured line-art

Colouring the line-art A

I find that this step gives the artwork the appeal and feel that I’m going for. I always loved cell drawing in animation where the line for the skin is painted with matching colours, for example. I began applying this technique on my covers as soon as I had figured out how to do it!

B Identify the areas that need colouring

I convert all the main areas of line-art that I know will be coloured line-art. This would be areas of skin, the places where bright light hits the line art, and the background. Once I establish these initial line-art colour changes, I go in and select those areas and adjust, push and blend in even more.

C Pushing the foreground forward

This approach works tremendously well with the background because it naturally pushes the foreground element forward as there’s more blacks in them and the backgrounds recede with the lighter colours. This final step pushes the dynamics of the piece by contrasting dark values with light values, warm hues with cool colours, and so on. This is the point where you can really polish the artwork and make it read clearly.